


Dark Times

by Alice (spideychelle_romanogers)



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternative Future, Angst, F/M, Loss, Spideychelle is very minimal sorry, dark au, please note archive warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 21:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideychelle_romanogers/pseuds/Alice
Summary: Alternate Future. After the death of Tony Stark in the Infinity War, Peter’s life has completely collapsed around him. Just as he is facing the greatest threat on his life,  Earth’s mightiest heroes have all disappeared without a trace. It’s left to him, Ned, and Michelle to save New York.





	Dark Times

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last draft of the backbone to a series that I have since canceled. I figured I’d share the entire thing as a one shot since I already had the whole plot written out. This is by no means a finished product at all but I thought I’d share it.

****It’s Peter’s senior year and he still thinks about Tony every day.

The years have done nothing to cure his PTSD. He still wakes up in cold sweats after nightmares about the way he lost him. Every time, he sees himself as a separate body, sobbing over his mentor during his last moments.

Tony’s last word to him will haunt him forever: “son”. Not “kid”, not “boy”, not a nickname. Son. Peter will never know what Tony was going to say after but the word alone was enough to destroy him. He had lost too much and too quickly to fathom saying goodbye.

Control is nonexistent. There is no hope in a world where your efforts aren’t enough to stop the worst from happening. 

* * *

Without Tony, Peter almost lost everything.

The Avengers didn’t know his true identity yet. Even without the mask, they didn’t know his name or really anything about him. They didn’t even know his age. They proposed ending his work with them because he was too young. He’d nearly died trying to face off with Thanos. That was too much for a kid, they said.

So Peter ran away. He went back to Aunt May with his excuses, he returned to school. If they do know where he is, they haven’t made it obvious. He hasn’t had any run ins with them, not even during his street watches.

* * *

Peter had two good friends.

It was important to remember this because it wouldn’t always be this way. He had a sidekick in Ned that he’d been reluctant to find.

Michelle found out his secret right before he left with Tony. When she caught him, he thought he’d spend his life trying to convince her not to tell anyone. He thought she hated him. Instead, she offered to help him in his efforts. Through Ned, she pushed for involvement the way Ned did before her.

Michelle and Ned were his crutches, keeping him human through the struggle. It was hard for him to ever see through the fog, but when he peeked out they were always there, ready to accept him for as long as he felt like coming out of his shell.

Still, every day passed on in this painful haze as he lost touch with his surroundings. Michelle and Ned were the only constants in his life. He could barely ever tell whether he was at school or in his suit, it was too hard for him to sense it.

Years passed like this. 

* * *

One day, Peter decided he needed to feel something again.

That day, he didn’t just patrol New York overnight, he sought out trouble. Stepping into the tensest of areas, he broke up a strange weapons exchange. His suit couldn’t take on fire but he stepped his way in anyway, dodging all that he could as he beat down each man with more ruthless violence than he’d ever exerted in his life.

He didn’t have a plan for getting out of there.

He never made one. 

* * *

Spider-Man was no longer so much an idol of hope as he was an extension of the police.

Peter didn’t know this, he wasn’t keeping up with the news. He wouldn’t have ever known if Michelle didn’t finally shake him out of his bubble.

Michelle had very strong opinions of what a superhero was and was not.

“You used to inspire me, Peter,” she yelled that same night, a few inches away from his face. He’d shut down on her. He could see the panic on hers and Ned’s faces, but he couldn’t react. Ned was busy blotting away the blood on his chest. Someone had shot him multiple times before he could get to them.

Peter couldn’t feel it, but to the other two it seemed to be a big deal. Michelle kept yelling, though he could see the tears forming in her eyes.

“You used to give people hope! Don’t you miss that? Don’t you miss being a hero? A hero does not try to get himself killed. Sacrificing yourself is not heroic. Trying to _kill yourself_ is not heroic. You are putting yourself in danger for danger’s sake. What happened to you? Your sacrifices used to be for the people you love. Now look at you.” Ned was crying now. Peter never really thought about what it must be like for them to take care of him so long. They were the tape keeping him together for as long as it could stick.

They were self-destructing in front of him. As she finished, Peter finally saw Michelle shed a tear and it finally hit him. He’d never seen Michelle cry. Michelle didn’t let anything touch her but she was yelling at him, and she was the one who was crying.

* * *

It took weeks for them to forgive him, but Peter started healing.

Word got around that Spider-Man busted a man named Smythe in his last ditch effort at saving his crime ring. Before this, Toomes was the worst earthly villain Peter had ever come across. After Thanos, Peter didn’t really think anyone could touch him.

Then again, Peter didn’t know Toomes’ allies were working for this man. They came in knowing his weaknesses and his strengths.

At first, Peter fought with their men.

Then, he found himself running from their machines.

They knew where he was at all times. Even as Peter, they wouldn’t find him but they would find his school. Midtown Science was shot at twice in a week while Peter was there. Though it was clear they couldn’t find him then, they always seemed to know just what he was doing.

When the third shooting happened a week later, Betty was shot while at her locker.

While she was unconscious in the hospital, Ned blamed Peter. Michelle and Peter didn’t know how to fix it, so Peter decided he had to stop going to school if he wanted the slayer bots to stop finding him.

It took a lot of convincing to get Michelle on his side, but a minor injury was what they needed to convince May to let him take time off school. Michelle was afraid to lie to May but they didn’t have another choice if he wanted to stop endangering their classmates.

* * *

While May was at work, Peter’s building was shot down. The windows of his apartment were destroyed by the slayers. He didn’t know how they kept finding him, but they didn’t shoot at him personally yet again.

Peter disappeared entirely. He didn’t want May to be seen with him, so he left her a note promising he would come back. Naturally, Michelle and Ned never really believed it when the news went through the school that Peter ran away.

Fearing the worst, Michelle hit at Peter with a rolled up newspaper when he finally revealed himself to the pair.

It was agreed upon there: Peter would have to stay in hiding until they could take down Smythe.

He lasted a few days in hiding before he heard it. The little whirring sound of their flight as they approached, the squeak as they opened their patches, the warning lights flashing before they started firing.

He dreamt of these noises every night. They overshadowed his memory of Tony every day. Everything he did was to hide from them.

And there they were at his doorstep yet again.

How did they keep finding him? 

* * *

May thought he was missing.

There were posters around Midtown and Queens with Peter’s face on them. Michelle begged Peter to let her tell May the truth. When he refused, she started having dinner with May every day just to keep an eye on her. The woman was closing in on herself with worry. The only room in the house left clean was Peter’s room.

Michelle wasn’t sure one visit had gone by without May beginning to cry as she left.

She just couldn’t take lying to her anymore. Against Peter’s wishes, Michelle finally told May the truth. Peter didn’t talk to Michelle for weeks after that.

* * *

Peter started to think he couldn’t go anywhere without them finding him. He starts seeking out the ring and taking down their operations when he can. If he can’t run away, the least he can do is fight.

May is away in Rhode Island, under cover until they can root out Smythe.

Two weeks later, after leaving his last hiding place, he goes to meet with Michelle and Ned near their school to tell them where he will live next. The cafe is shot down within minutes. Peter stares a man in the eye as he smiles, the robots hovering around him, hovering with a whirr before a short squeak as the warning lights strike.

Peter only just pushed Ned and Michelle on the ground when they opened fire.

Everyone that died in that incident stays burned into Peter’s memory forever as he spends more nights alone in abandoned churches and factory buildings. Peter knows the face of the man that wants to kill him now. And Smythe knows his face.

Peter isn’t even sure he’s taken a breath in months.

* * *

Just when he’s about to reach out to the Avengers, he finds out they’re nowhere to be found.

The world has been looking for their heroes for months now. After everything they did to abandon him, it’s only expected that when Peter needs them most, they’re gone.

He’s all the help he’s got.

Michelle doesn’t let this news get her down. She and Ned start a new plan. They start tracking the time it takes for the slayers to find Peter.

Peter still isn’t talking to Michelle, they haven’t exchanged words in weeks. Still, he listens as they explain their tracking method. He would have to provoke the slayers a few times for the data to help them but Peter can’t really feel any more fear than he’s already facing.

Though they aren’t talking, Michelle talks _at_ him. When she tells him she’s proud, Peter nearly walks away. He trusted her with a secret and he should’ve known better than to believe she wouldn’t put her choices above his.

“You’re a hero, Peter. I missed seeing you be a hero.”

Peter doesn’t know what’s changed now. She yelled at him for endangering himself. This just seemed like he was repeating old mistakes.

“It would be better for everyone if I just disappeared,” he said finally.

“You won’t. You care about us too much.” He was still mad at her and yet she seemed to have every confidence in the world that they were still friends. 

* * *

Before they could start tests, Michelle was picked up on her walk home. This man tried to take her. When she resisted, he landed a few fists into her ribs before she could finally get any advantage on him. Pulling and letting her legs release under her, she crawled to the ground trying to escape his grip.

Trying to beat the resistance out of her, he landed a few kicks into her back as she let her body go limp to fool him. With a swift punch to his nose as he picked her up, Michelle resisted and kicked all of him that she could until she could escape.

Making her way back to Peter on foot, Michelle is hardly able to stand up straight when they come to the conclusion that he needs to go find Ned.

They were able to track Ned by his phone, Michelle barely holding on to coherence long enough to give Peter instructions.

It was easy to find him. They wanted Peter to find him. They had a space for Michelle waiting too. They wanted Peter to find them. To lose hope.

Ned is barely recognizable with the swelling on his face, but he's breathing and they all have to settle for that piece of good news.

* * *

As Michelle and Ned stay in his hideout, Peter provokes the slayers to chase him. He gets shot a few times on each run. When Ned and Michelle finally find him out on the field, he is practically babbling with fear. There was just something about being alone every day and being watched at the same time. He couldn’t say much, but he was begging for Tony to come find him. He was begging for Tony to help.

It’s decided that Peter can’t be alone, and Michelle and Ned can’t go home. They live together in whatever abandoned hole they can find. They haven’t seen their family in ages. They found a way through the tunnel to New Jersey. They didn’t have to switch hiding places as often anymore.

The Slayers stop coming, so Michelle and Ned finally have time to figure out why.

New York City is descending into chaos. Every neighborhood is looking for its heroes. Every super-human is off the radar without any indication of why. Spider-Man stuck out the longest time but finally it settled on the city that the heroes were all gone.

It took everything to convince Peter not to go back.

* * *

One day, Peter, Michelle, and Ned all go out together for a routine reload. Michelle jacks a car for them and they start scouting a new home for themselves, a place with wifi so that Ned can get back to work while Michelle plans.

Nothing happens.

It’s almost too relieving. As they pull up in the parking of the warehouse they are staying, they see the telltale signs of another attack.

The windows are all shattered. The door is shot through. The roof is collapsed.

Peter goes in alone at first, to check if there are more slayers left. Instead, he finds his suit in the ruined backpack that is so tapered the only conclusion is that it was the sole focus of the bots.

The suit. They’re tracking the suit.

Peter tried to rip the tracker out of the suit when he realized there was no way to pull it out without tearing it.

* * *

Michelle was encharged with burying the Iron Spider suit, as Ned tried to get Peter’s old suit back online. The simpler red and blue suit Tony made him would have to serve their purposes. Peter was already at the Avengers Institute stealing his suit back. Security systems were all online but there wasn’t a trace of any personnel.

Walking out, he just couldn’t imagine who could possibly take down the entire hero population of New York without making its identity known. This was too much power for Smythe.

Ned and Michelle watch the news as Peter returns. They tried to hide it from him, but he sees the headlines in time to decide to fight them off when they stop him from going for the remote. Smythe has announced shootings on the citizens of New York until Spider-Man shows himself.

* * *

When Michelle and Ned finally convinced Peter not to leave until they had a plan, they all went on full shutdown as they waited for their computer program to track down the slayers.

They decide they will find the slayer army overnight. With the new suit, Peter should be invisible to the bots. If he can find a way to destroy all of them without waking them, then the war with Smythe is over before sunrise.

As Peter suits up, he misses the sound of Karen’s voice as it powers up. 

* * *

They’ve been at war for so long they’d forgotten their youth. If they take down the slayers, Smythe is powerless against Peter.

Since they are too far from the suit to be found, for a moment they can breathe as they wait. It’s only going to take a few hours, so they find a way to use the time wisely before facing their death. After all, it’s clear as day if Peter doesn’t make it back then Ned and Michelle have no chance of surviving.

They reach an abandoned house and spend their wait there.

Ned finds a hat and wears it around the house. Michelle and Peter tease him like in the old days when they were children. In the kitchen, Michelle finds stale tea and begins to prepare it. They both found small pieces of their identity to remember what it's like to be human.

Unlike them, Peter doesn’t rest.

* * *

As the progress bar is reaching its end, they discuss the plan again at Michelle’s request. If Peter can last long enough in the warehouse and shut off the machines, then they can take Smythe down without issue. If anything happens, it is Peter’s job to keep working his way through the bots.

Michelle makes a big deal about this point. They all know this is the hardest thing to get through to Peter. If he abandons the bots at any point, they will not be able to save anyone. Smythe will know how to reprogram them. They’ll track him in his new suit.

So she makes him swear to her he won’t go after them if anything happens. Peter doesn’t know why she’s doing this but he swears to them he will stick to the plan. They part ways, promising to get some rest before they go.

* * *

Peter feels bad for lying about going to sleep until he catches Michelle sitting at her laptop. She’s writing animatedly, the typing so loud Peter wonders if she will wake Ned up. As he says her name, she jumps and shuts the laptop immediately.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she claims before he takes the laptop out of her hands.

He reads ‘Dear Mom and Dad’ before she takes it back. “Why are you saying goodbye?”

“Just in case. If anyone finds this, maybe they can send it out,” she answers. He frowns. “Do you remember what life was like before all of this?”

“Barely.”

“I don’t want to die forgetting. Or not saying everything I needed to.”

“Like what?” he asks. She doesn’t answer him. “Okay, I’ll start. I really thought you hated me in high school.”

“Don’t worry, I thought I did too.” He laughed. “I really thought _you_ hated me in high school.”

“I didn’t,” Peter answered. After a long pause, he chuckled again. “I also couldn’t tell if you had a crush on me.”

“Don’t look so smug, Parker.”

“I think I even had a crush on you too.”

Michelle laughs awkwardly. “That was ancient history.”

“Not if I still do.”

“Shut up,” she laughed. He smiled, but he didn’t let it go as if it was a joke. Even when it seemed she understood he was being serious, she didn’t say anything. So he changed the subject.

“What will you do when we win?”

“I need to see my parents.”

“I mean beyond that. What will you do?”

“I will finish school, bank on this hero status and get into Harvard.”

“You’re a hero now?” he teased. “I thought you didn’t like heroes.”

“You really haven’t been listening. I love heroes. I don’t believe in self-sacrifice. I think the only kind of sacrifice that is heroic is the kind where you save people you love. That’s what _you_ do.”

“Isn’t it what all heroes do?”

“I don’t believe in all of them, but I believe in you.”

As Peter went back to sleep, Michelle went back to typing away at her computer. He didn’t know what was so urgent for her, but he never thought to ask.

* * *

In a van parked outside the warehouse, Peter and Ned stare at blueprints of the building. Aside from the room where the bots were, Peter noticed a long spiraling staircase leading into the basement. There was only one way into the building and no way out. A staircase to nowhere. He couldn’t stop focusing on it as Michelle explained his exit strategy.

Over every other piece of advice, she begged him not to take that hallway or he’d be trapped in the walls. He couldn’t get his eyes off of it. If anything went wrong, that hallway was the suicide mission. That was where he could go if it all went south and he didn’t want the bots to come out and attack them.

He burned the image of it into his memory. He promised he wouldn’t come after Michelle and Ned if anything happened, but he needed a plan for if the bots were to come online and attack. He’d rather save them. That was the kind of sacrifice Michelle meant, heroic. He’d do anything for them to be spared.

Peter glances at the rooms with the slayers, knowing already the real challenge would be learning how to destroy them.

Ned gave a half-hearted pep talk. Peter just takes in his last details of this moment. He memorizes Michelle’s face, the smell of the crisp night air, the way Ned looked so funny with that hat still on. He took in the moment, the tight van, the quiet night, the sound of tumbling that would come every time they moved. He over observed everyone. Michelle’s backpack was over packed. Ned’s desk was cluttered. He lied to himself this wouldn’t be the last chance he had to just savor the moment.

Before long, they were letting him out of the van. Ned and Michelle both hugged him too long, but this time Peter wasn’t leaving them in tears. He needed this memory of them to be perfect, and it was. To his mercy, they smiled as they wished him good luck. 

* * *

Peter didn’t stand a chance. The bots were indestructible. He led all of the guards to the room with the slayers, dodging their attacks by putting the bots in the way. As he pulled around a corner, he heard a familiar voice in the distance. The same voice that threatened violence on the citizens of New York if Spider-Man didn’t show his face.

Smythe.

Fearing for a moment that the tracker on his suit was also traceable to the bots, he called to Michelle and Ned for help. There was no reply until he heard a shaky voice from Ned. “Keep looking for a way to kill the bots.”

“They might be able to see me.”

It sounded like Ned’s voice was faltering on him. “They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“They won’t.”

Smythe cooed out Spider-Man’s name over and over as if taunting a little child.

All at once, the hundreds of bots began the whirring sound. One by one, they lifted out of their shelves as they prepared to attack. Peter’s breath caught in his throat as he watched them gather. He awaited the familiar squeak and warning lights but they never came. The whirrs just gathered themselves until it was a loud buzzing that was fading away.

They ran the other way. Out the door.

“Ned, what’s happening?”

“I couldn’t stop her.”

 

* * *

 

 

Peter heard Karen’s voice before he heard Michelle’s. Through the earpiece, he called to her.

“I’m fine, Peter.”

“Why do I hear Karen?”

You’re not Peter, he heard Karen say.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Michelle assured him with a shaky voice.

“You don’t have powers, Michelle.”

“I don’t need powers. I needed your suit.” He could only listen in horror as he raced after the bots to try and find her. They were long gone before he could even get to the door. “They would have come after you if I didn’t.” Walking out of the warehouse, he tried to watch in the distance for her before hearing the familiar buzz come from inside. “If I go deep enough underground, they might lose track.”

“Underground?” He could hear her footsteps through the earpiece, smacking across a hard concrete floor. The basement staircase. “Michelle, there’s no way out of there,” he yelled, running in after her.

“You know, I didn’t really have a lot of friends in middle school.”

“Just come back, I can get you out of there.”

“When I went to Midtown it was the same thing. I couldn’t really find anyone I could get along with. I don’t know.”

“Please, Michelle.”

“I guess I just never really knew how to make friends.”

“Michelle,” Peter jumped staircases trying to catch up. If he could turn the bots on himself, maybe they’d let her escape.

“I didn’t hate you guys. Even when we weren’t friends, I wanted to pretend we were.” The call was beginning to cut out. Her plan could work if the bots couldn’t track her. She was outrunning them.

“Michelle, get out of there.”

“I never really thought anybody could care about me like that, so it was all a pipe dream.”

“Please,” he begged finally as he could barely hear more than static.

He could hear she was out of breath. “I can’t keep going, Peter.”

“Just run, Michelle. Just run.”

“I’m happy we’re friends,” she sighed out finally. “I really, really love you guys.”

“Why aren’t you running Michelle?”

“The tunnel ended, Peter.” Before he could ask, he heard the familiar whirr and threw himself further and further down the staircase to reach her in time.

 

* * *

 

 

After he saw her face so still, he found himself in that familiar numbness that had greeted him after Tony had passed. Years had gone by and Peter forgot what loss felt like. Michelle would be the last one. He tore the tracker out of the suit Michelle was wearing. It took all of his motivation to leave her there.

Around her, the bots were on the ground, completely still. They seemed programmed to shoot until their target was dead. They collapsed to the ground when he arrived. As he stepped over them, he gripped the tracker tight in his hand as he went after his target.

“I don’t know how they missed you,” Smythe started before Peter flung himself at him. Gripping the man by the suit, Peter used his clenched fist to find a way to make his punches reach all the way to the back of the man’s head. Try as he did, Peter didn’t have the guts to kill him himself. So he pulled the man up off the ground by his jacket and released the tracker into his suit pocket before picking him up and tossing him across the room.

Truthfully, it pained Peter to cause anyone this pain. He had no regrets for what was to come.

“I can call them back. They will kill you. They won’t rest until they find their target.”

“Call them then,” Peter dared. As Smythe reached under his desk to find the controls, Peter waited carefully, out of sight from the door. He pulled his mask off.

“You’re still just a boy,” Smythe accused as they loud buzz of the army grew.

“No,” he said confidently as he heard the bots approach from behind, the whirring sound followed by a squeak as he walked away from their new target. His childhood was hardly a memory now. He didn’t feel anything when Smythe cried out for help. “I’m Spider-Man."

 


End file.
